Address issue, not prices

Kilroy's $1.50 well drinks Monday. Fifteen cent drafts at Bluebird Wednesday. Five cent 20 ounce beers at Axis Thursday. \nThanks to these cheap deals and several more like them, IU students can enjoy the Bloomington bar scene any night of the week. Those who know these drink specials by heart might be part of a growing trend.\n New findings were released Sept. 12 by the Harvard School of Public Health linking the marketing of low-priced alcohol and drink specials around college campuses to increased student consumption. To combat the trend, the writers of the study recommended regulating the marketing practices of alcohol retailers around college campuses.\n College binge drinking is, of course, a large problem nationwide, but it is doubtful that following the suggestions of the Harvard study would profoundly decrease binge drinking. Moreover, the study provided no definitive proof that advertising is the cause of student drinking, only that a correlation exists.\n How much money did Harvard spend on this intellectual gem? Way to go, Ivy League.\nIts findings seem as arbitrary as they are obvious. It is just as likely that the opposite is true -- that high levels of binge drinking on college campuses are the cause of increased alcohol advertising and drink specials.\nKilroy's Sports Bar Managers Eric Easton and Joel Hall think the results of the study make sense, but they stressed that students at colleges like IU would drink just as often if promotions and advertising were eliminated all together.\n"The specials are just a competitive thing between bars," Easton said. "Students are going to drink anyway, either at home or at the bars. We don't run drink specials to get people more drunk. We do it to get people in the door."\nBesides, as morally objectionable as advertising alcohol might be, bars and liquor stores have a right to compete in the free market. \nOf course, the real question the experts at Harvard are trying to answer is this: What can be done about college binge drinking?\nHenry Wechsler, director of the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study, has consistently favored prohibitive measures over educational efforts aimed at drinkers. It was Wechsler who defined binge drinking as five or more drinks in one night at any point over a two-week period -- a standard which has often been criticized as being too broad.\nIt is no surprise, then, that in light of these most recent findings, the Harvard study would simply recommend stricter measures of regulation on businesses that provide alcohol near campuses.\nWhat the study neglects, however, is that the choice to drink begins with the students, not with the alcohol retailers. Measures taken to reduce alcohol consumption at colleges should be aimed at students instead of legitimate businesses. If the programs are successful, then students will drink less no matter how many drink specials are run.